What I Learned By Ignoring My Blog For A Year?

I wish I could have more than one opening paragraphs for this post. For I am sure, you wouldn’t want to read this or can anticipate what’s in it unless you know all those things.

I ignored my blog for over a year. I know I can get away with saying I was busy but it’s not the truth. You can never be busy for the things you really want to do. But here’s the thing – growth in blogging is slow, especially for a person who doesn’t have the habit of pinging brands and shamelessly bugging marketers for free products, brand deals and so on.

So, all you do if you’re not that type of blogger is do your work and then wait.

It gets even more frustrating when you’re operating a blog in India, where there are thousands of bloggers who would do anything for a freebie even if it’s of Rs. 10. YES. Obviously, they don’t really put in effort into their blogs and therefore, never think that they deserve more or can ask more.

Then there are PR agencies who think that asking for money for the effort and hours you put into your work is blasphemous. Obviously, it’s because of their skills of operation for they can’t differentiate between what blogs will really help their client. But then who really wants to help the clients? It’s all a set of dumb people trying to fool one another.

So, amongst all this, I discovered a medium that grew faster than blogging and started working on it. It’s YouTube. The fact that how tough Youtubing is and how much it really takes is a story I will tell some other time. But here, know that somewhere deep down in my heart, I thought I would do well as a YouTuber. I, obviously, paid more attention to it than to my blog.

Then there was work for the clients I used to do. I won’t lie. Initially, I loved the work. I work with people rather than on projects. I loved the people. Then the organization got corrupted by the same set of dumb people belonging to the set of bloggers and PRs I talked about just now and that’s again a story we will discuss in detail sometime later.

So, all in all, I started reducing the frequency of blog posts. I barely posted on my blog. And I never complained how it didn’t bring me business or recognition. I wasn’t working on it, and I wasn’t expecting anything from it.

But now, after one year and one month, I have realized my mistake. And who doesn’t learn from mistakes? I did. And here’s what I learned by ignoring my blog for a year.

It’s tough to ignore your passion

You know it’s like that thing. You know having a regular 9 to 5 well-paying job is the easiest and most convenient thing for you and that’s what makes you work hard. But every day you leave your house for the office, you experience that pinch in your heart that says something’s not right.

You ignore it as much as you can, but it stays adamant until you accept.

That’s what happened with me. I had so many things that would’ve paid much better and much quicker, and they apparently seemed easier options. I went for them. But now and then, I was forced to accept. You can never ignore your passion, no matter how much you try to. It will keep coming back to you.

The best way out of this? Accept it and try to work on it as much as possible without ignoring it. Take out time for it. Make time for it and do it. The scale doesn’t matter. The efforts do.

2. You may not believe in your work, but many do

One of the many reasons I was inclined to ignore this blog for a whole damn year was that I thought it wasn’t good enough. I didn’t feel it was valuable to many and it was helping anybody. Although that has never been my motive (I am a truly selfish person) but I am highly moved by opinions.

It all started with a comment, “Hey, I checked your blog and now your content has gotten really interesting. Earlier, it was meaningless and boring.”

You see, I ignored the first line. Second line stuck to me and I had so many reasons to nullify that statement like I get all my business from the posts I wrote then, I get all my search traffic on those posts, I get all my email list subscribers because of those posts, most comments on my blog posts are on those series of posts and many more.

But talk about undermining yourself, and you’ll find me on the top of the list. So, it stuck. I thought my blog wasn’t providing value to anybody. Whatever topic that came to my mind, I convinced myself out of the idea. I never thought it was good enough to be posted. I never wrote the posts.

So, I ended up with no posts, many ideas and still, no posts. But if you’re reading carefully, you must be wondering what made me write now? Those were set of comments that told me how valuable they find my blog, how they need my suggestions and opinions. That made me feel how I was depriving many people of the help I could offer just because some dumbass didn’t understand my content and need it. There are many who do and those are the ones I should focus on.

To be honest, I got struck with the idea while reading a post on Social Triggers that talked of how you cannot please everybody and how you shouldn’t. Just think of talking to the set of people who like your work and are supporting it without trying to change somebody’s mind.

Always remember that there’s somebody who would find your content good and helpful if that’s what your intention is. Don’t get dissuaded by hate comments. They’re just bunch of frustrated people who need help but can’t accept it.

Sometimes, they’re people like me who just get irritated for you don’t put enough efforts in what you’re doing. Both are haters, in the end. Ignore the first kind, and take the pointers from the second kind and then ignore them too.

3. Change is good

If ever you feel stuck with something, maybe a relationship, a job, a problem or anything, CHANGE IT. If you can’t do anything to change it, just change it in your thoughts. Think of it as if it’s already changed. That’s the principle of manifestation working here. When I was introduced to the concept, I thought it was a new one but as I was told, it literally is everywhere. You just don’t notice it.

You can ignore those last few lines if you don’t know what the principle of manifestation is but pay attention to this: You’re stuck so bad in a situation that it’s affecting everything in your life. You cannot find a way to get out of it. That’s the reality.

And I am a practical person who accepts that sometimes, things happen like that. You will obviously brainstorm ways to get out of the situation but even if you can’t, give your mind a rest by imagining the situations where you’ve already gotten yourself out of it. It, if not anything else, helps you calm down.

Then tell yourself that anything can be changed and change is good. One of the major reasons why people think they’re stuck is because they themselves are afraid of the change. For example, that organization, now filled with dumbasses, that made me feel stuck… who was stopping me from leaving it and giving myself a better life?

It was the same Manpreet who is writing the post who was too damn scared to part away with the money she earned from it. She knew she could survive with a few efforts but she just loved the ease and comfort. And that was sucking the life out of her.

So, when she complained of being stuck, she didn’t. Because, deep down, she always knew that she is in it because of her own reasons. The day she decided that she doesn’t want to be in it anymore for real, she took 1 second to press that ‘send’ button for the email she wrote 6 months ago (not literally, I made some changes to it but still).

You know what! I wasn’t being brave or great while resigning. I was just giving myself some fresh air. I knew it would be difficult. I attach myself too much to the things I do and to the people I work with. I knew it would hurt but in the end, it went well. Change is good.

You may think it was too early, but know that there’s not a single thing that I had regretted doing ever in my life. All my regrets come from things I didn’t do. So, when you do things, you change things. It always turns out to be good in the end.

4. Consistency outdoes everything

Wait! Is that sub-heading grammatically correct? To be honest, I didn’t learn it exactly by ignoring my blog for a year. I learned it by not ignoring some things and by pondering over what’s missing in the other things.

The things that were getting me results… I was not doing anything different with them. All were same but for the fact that some of them I did every day for they were kind of a part of my job while I ignored some of them for even over a year just because they were my home projects and nobody was going to hold a paycheck if I didn’t work on them.

It’s not a new idea just like anything in this blog post isn’t new. I have heard this idea from many successful people and never truly believed it. Let’s be real. Being consistent is tough. I consistently uploaded videos on my Booktube channel for every odd day for the last month and I truly feel like I have lived for a year. It was long, often painful to get my ass off in the cold winter evenings, shoot a video, then edit it, then optimize it and then post it. It felt good in the end but doing that was challenging.

Being consistent is the most difficult thing ever. Every day, you may not see the best things. Every video may not get you best comments and likes. Every day’s efforts may not convert into sales but if you stick to it long enough and do it long enough, you will always find success. Find a person who can prove it’s wrong and I promise I will delete this blog. (How many of you follow PewDePie by the way?)

5. Blogging is good for your mental health

I am totally convinced that in India nobody blogs for reasons other than money, free food and free stuff. But the people I respect are the ones who do it for reasons other than that. There are people who truly want to share. There are people who truly want to connect. And it helps!

You cannot imagine how good I am feeling after writing this down. After a year of ignoring my blog, it feels like I have found a new heaven for myself. I feel good as well as light just because I wrote everything down and I am sharing it with somebody. That somebody maybe just one person (No, my blog isn’t that dead yet but still) and it will still mean a lot.

Mental health is a serious issue and I am much closely related to it than many normal people. And I am always on a lookout for things that could help. Writing things down and sharing it with somebody (not your relative, friend or spouse) is the best thing you can do to feel lighter and get clearer thoughts. Try it!

Those are the five things I learned by ignoring my blog for a year. What did you learn from this post?

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4 COMMENTS

Well, first of all, it’s very difficult to stay away from our blog for a year, so commendable effort.

But sometimes it is good to be away as we can change our mind and come back with better motivation and that can surely happen from the feedback or readers or customers, depending on whatever field we are working in.

So, Welcome back Manpreet. Looking forward to read some extraordinary stuff from you.

Thank you Jenny. I didn’t stay away from it at stretch. I was just not focusing on it like I used to. But yes… sometimes staying away helps us clear our mind and come back with higher motivation levels and much better ideas.

Hi Manpreet! Thank you so much for writing this post. I have done some research on how to get my blog successful too and the main things i discovered were promotion and consistency. I still have to do lots more research if I want to get anywhere ahead but I decided to try consistency. January was a great month for me as well. I challenged myself to upload two posts every week. Its not much but i thought I’ll try this first since I had been posting 2-3 posts per month in 2016. I made a schedule and I did it. I want to say that this post of yours and all your other posts on blogging (I read them all!) have really and honestly helped me. I really love this blog as well as your youtube channels and I wish you the best for them 🙂

Thank you Tavleen. You found the right answer – consistently creating content and promoting is the key having a popular and successful blog. Keep it up. Keep working with the same consistency and try to make it even better. Good luck 🙂